sharpen your knife
by BerryliciousCheerio
Summary: <html><head></head>Let them come. Let them see. Let them fear. Graphic violence, ahoy.</html>


**I DONT HAVE AN ENGLISH PAPER DUE TOMORROW. NOT AT ALL.**

**also so i know the ep airs today BUT i've been working on this shit all week, so, if you've seen the ep, pretend you haven't. view this as an au. i haven't seen the ep yet, so i have no fucking idea what's happened. **

**BUT OUR LADY OF GRACE JEMMA SIMMONS RETURNS TO US TODAY GODBLESS**

**disclaimed**

* * *

><p>...<p>

When you return to SHIELD, you stalk in proudly—wear your Hydra jacket, blood and gore embedded in the fibers, like a badge of honor. No one is willing to meet your eyes.

Good. Let them fear you.

There's a scar across your neck, slashes on your chest. A bullet wound in your hip. You dove into a pit of dogs—Jezebel in the Book of Knights—and came back whole.

Let them come.

Let them see.

Let them fear.

...

Anger is an all-consuming emotion.

And you are so angry.

...

You leave without a word. Middle of the night—you creep from your bed like an unfaithful lover. The only thing you scratch onto paper, your sorry excuse of a note, is this; _I can't keep doing this._

It sounds like the end. And it might be.

You do not have the stomach to look Fitz in the eyes, or to face Skye, and you think yourself a coward.

But it is better than the alternative.

...

Your dump your phone three miles away from the complex. You can't—

if you want to succeed in what you plan to do, you cannot risk being tracked. And you know that you will be tracked. You call the BUS's line from a payphone two blocks away from the trash can. May answers. "Simmons?" She almost sounds hopeful.

"I—," you start. You find it hard to finish. "I can't call again. I'm sorry."

You're glad it's May. Anyone else and—

and you might give up. Might go back. But you _can't_. This is what you need. This is what you can do to help, in a world where you are otherwise helpless.

You stand there for so long, until the sun begins to rise, and her breathing is calm and steady. You match it. Seven seconds on the in breath, eleven on the out.

Jemma Simmons. Ex-SHIELD.

You will be okay.

...

Hydra is surprisingly organized.

They have an HR manager, one that calls your name cheerily as you sit in the waiting room. The interview is not an interview—

you are strapped to a polygraph machine and injected with a truth serum. Protective measures. You've been expecting this.

Your heart pounds out a beat that sounds like—

like things too painful to think of. Like cramped quarters and sharing a bed. Like chemicals and flying. Like home. It is the only constant in your world. Home sickness hits you in waves, ebbing, before threatening to drown you again, but you will not falter.

A misstep means a bullet through your head, means grey matter on the floor, means blood, means your parents will have an actual body to bury this time. Means the end of everything.

You are good at preparation and this is your trial by fire.

...

Name?

...

"Jemma Simmons."

...

Age?

...

"Twenty-six."

...

Why are you here?

...

_Why are you here?_

_..._

_Why_

_..._

Jemma Simmons.

...

_Are_

...

Twenty-six.

...

_You_

...

Sheffield.

_..._

_Here_

_..._

No siblings.

...

_?_

You are prepared to answer questions. You are not prepared to explain yourself.

...

Why are you here?

...

"I didn't believe, anymore."

...

You are not sure if it's a lie.

...

They put you in a lab, in the middle of Los Angeles, six blocks from your apartment. You make a routine; 5:45 alarm. Exercise. Coffee, shower. Coffee, dress. Coffee. Your apartment is silent when you leave, and the outside world is startlingly not so.

After so much time spent in the relative peace of the BUS, the constant noise is harsh and grating. But the silence of your home is more so. The hum of the engines had become a constant, a comfort; home was defined by crowded bunks and no absolute silence.

You purchase a white noise machine with your first paycheck.

...

Focus on the small things, you repeat, over and over, until you think it may be branded onto your hippocampus. You focus on duvets. Bed skirts. China and silverware, matching placemats. Colors for your kitchen, your living room. You've never had a space of your own to create, and you take this opportunity for all that it is worth.

No pictures, though.

Nothing of your time with SHIELD. No Skye, or Coulson, or May, or _Fitz_, and you almost can't sleep at night for thought of them, struggling, fighting, trying to survive.

Days pass, and you find ways to forget.

...

Climbing the ladder within Hydra takes only weeks. SHIELD may be weak, but this branch of Hydra is weaker. And you are smart, so smart, and so young, they do not think you a threat. You have knowledge of SHIELD, and capable hands, and that is all that they want of you.

Your supervisor, a startlingly ordinary man—Donald Keith, he greets you in the mornings and says goodnight in the evenings, but you are alone, for the majority of your time. You do not think of using your time for treachery. You are not so blind as to think that you are not being watched.

Duck your head. Do your work, and do it well. This is nothing that you do not know.

...

Sometimes you wake in a cold sweat. Sometimes you wake with water in your lungs, with a burning in your chest. Sometimes you wake thinking that nothing has changed.

That's the worst bit, you think.

You expect to find chemical formulas scrawled above you, beside you, expect to find only stars around you. You expect Skye to wake you in the middle of the night, because sometimes the night brought a darkness out in the both of you that you chose not to analyze. You expect Fitz in the room next to you, tapping out Morse code against your head. May protecting you all through the night, Coulson waking you for breakfast.

You expect your family.

You find bare walls, instead. Empty rooms. A refrigerator with only your favorite foods.

This is not what you want, but this is what you have.

Adapt.

Evolve.

Be better.

...

They move you to Acquisitions sooner than you could have anticipated. You work in the lab for a handful of days out of the week, and the rest of the time, they shove a gun into your hands and send you out.

You come back with blood under your nails half the time—the other half you bring teenagers and children in tow. You can't—

you make promises you may not be able to keep. But there is only so much blood you can stomach to spill, only so much you can wade through before it stains your bones.

Hydra gives you a white lab coat and makes you stain it.

You unravel.

...

You take the scissors yourself. Leave the remnants of yourself on the floor because of reasons you can't think of now.

It feels like betrayal. It feels like the end of all things.

...

You find strands of hair for weeks, afterwards.

You've started to laugh when you do.

...

Here is the day you think you might have gone past everything you ever believed; kneeling in front of you is a sobbing sixteen year old girl. The rest of your team is behind you, as you cajole, bully, argue with her.

You offer money. Safety.

Power, boys, girls, anything. You do not want to do this.

She is spitting curses at you, and you cannot meet her eyes. Isla, the newest addition to your team, since that one Gifted killed Erron, steps forward, hissing, waving a gun.

"Kill her, Simmons."

You want to flinch. If this was not your reality, you would.

"Jesus fucking—I'll do it—."

"No."

You do not yell or bark. You keep your voice steady, keep it iron and steel. You tell the girl to turn around. "If you're going to murder me," she says, in a wavering voice, "look me in the eye."

So you do.

You press the muzzle of your gun to her forehead, your back to the rest. Mouth an apology, and blink. You manage not to stumble when the weapon goes off, manage not to recoil from the blood that sprays you. The girl crumples.

You don't know her name. You don't know if she had a family.

One of the men, Danes, kicks the corpse, laughing. You are making a list of people to kill at the end of all this, and he is at the top. You do not bother to clean the blood off of you before returning to the lab.

...

Coulson finds you in your home. You hold him at gunpoint.

And he gives you an out.

...

You've been Hydra for six months when the end comes.

The lab is busy when the alarm sounds. There is no chaos, no panic, like there might have been in a SHIELD laboratory. Hydra trains all their recruits in combat, in weapons, and everyone is calm. Weapons are drawn.

You place yourself at the back of the room, as everyone faces the door. Protocol calls for scientists to protect their findings, and this means that you will not abandon ship. There are three people in this room that you have convinced to join up.

You shoot the rest.

...

You snap a man's neck in the hallway, and take his gun. You know him from the meeting last week—he has three children. But he would not have hesitated to shoot you, to kill you, your friends. You do not let it slow you.

The Gifteds are held on the other side of the building, in a series of rooms with individual codes, but you can't bloody well leave them, can you?

You can hear the gunfire before you even reach the complex.

...

Your heel lands in grey matter.

The common room is painted in red, in flesh. These kids—they look like they've been torn apart. It takes all you have, every bit of training, to not retch.

An eyeball bursts underfoot, and that is when you vomit.

...

There are two survivors. Donnie Gill, and a little girl from Turkmenistan, who can alter the molecular makeup of objects around her. You aren't—

you don't want to know how they managed to escape.

You don't want to think about this. About any of it.

You refuse.

...

Homecomings are not sweet.

You are vicious, steel tipped teeth and a lashing tongue, and your world is afraid of you. Your boots are still stained in blood when you go down to the vaults.

...

Ward is not expecting it to be you. He is not expecting you to return, baptized in blood and dirty water, to speak with him. But now—

now you can. Now you can reconcile the man you knew and the man in front of you. You understand now. You are not the same Jemma Simmons that walked out, all those nights ago, and you understand. "Fitz has been visiting me," he says. He is making eye contact—

good. Good, that's—.

Good.

Don't overthink right now.

You lower the wall, and beat him at backgammon.

...

Trip smiles at you, lifts his arms a little. He is not going to push, but this is what you need now. His arms are strong, his heartbeat steady.

Don't think. Be present.

...

May brings you tea, your first night back. She—

you can't appreciate her enough.

She stays by your side until the sun rises, until you can find it easier to sleep. Her hands are strong, gentle, and they lead you to bed.

...

Coulson smiles at you in the hallway. You think he is proud of you.

You wish he wouldn't be.

...

You seek Skye out, finally, once the bloodstains have faded from your mind's eye. It has been seven weeks since your return.

She is livid.

She screams at you, calls you traitor, coward, _liar_. And you cannot fault her for it. At some point, she begins to cry, begins to break. She lunges for you, and you think, for a moment, that she is going to kill you. You are okay with that.

You rock backward with momentum as she latches onto you.

You do not cry.

...

Fitz finds you. In your bunk, on the BUS. You had thought that—

maybe you had thought that if you were here again, if you were _home_, all these rough edges would smooth, all the broken pieces would mend. He takes your hand gently.

"Jemma—," he breathes, reverently, like he can't believe you're real. He is familiar—

warm and real and comforting—

and you can't stop yourself.

You curls yourself into the side of his body, the last six months falling squarely on your lungs, your heart. Your sobs give way to an animalistic wail, and you cannot stop.

...

You stop crying, one day.

May talks with you, when complex is quiet, empty, when you can't sleep. Some nights, Skye climbs into your bed, hands shaking, and you will stay up, whispering secrets like teenagers, until sleep can find you. Ward wins at chess, you at everything else. Trip teaches you the entire choreography to Taylor Swift's Shake it Off. And Fitz—

Fitz makes pancakes.

...

You will be okay.

You will learn to be okay again.

...

Jezebel dove into a pit of dogs and returned a wolf, fur matted in blood.

Let them come.

Let them see.

Let them fear.

...

_fin_

* * *

><p><strong>im a mess<strong>


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